Lavanya Loganathan was born in Ealing Hospital in 1996. She is one of three generations living under the same roof in Greenford, a large suburb in the west London borough of Ealing. When we first meet at the Loganathan home in April 2012, all three generations are there to welcome us in from the damp chill of early spring in London. Her grandmother, the last of the family to arrive in the UK, recounts tales of arriving to school in Jaffna in the back of a horse drawn cart. Her mother, passing around a plate of fish cutlets and chutney, was the second to arrive in London, uprooted from Jaffna in the late 1980s amid conflict between the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) and Tamil militant organisations. Lavanya, switching the conversation from Tamil to English and back again, has never left Ealing. She was raised on a steady diet of extracurricular activities – English verse and prose, Carnatic violin, Tamil language classes, voluntary work at the Temple and bharatanatyam dance, to name a few. Like many young people, her studies – GCSEs in Latin, German, French, Drama and Geography – consume most of her waking hours, but she still manages to find down time to listen to hip hop – Eminem is currently her favourite – or to bow her violin. When asked about the future, she has a plan: a career in UK journalism. In addition to her love for English language and literature, her reasoning is clear: ‘I’m a British citizen but my parents aren’t so I think it will be great for them to know that even though they haven’t been given opportunities, we have.’

HERE AND THERE

Lavanya Loganathan, 16, talks about growing up surrounded by Hindu Tamil
celebrations in Ealing and the influence these immersions have had on her
understanding of Tamil heritage and her impressions of life in Britain and
Sri Lanka.

In her interview, she also shares how her family keeps in touch with relations spread around the world…